After treating the enthusiast community to the Republic of Gamers (ROG) ARES Dual HD 5870 graphics accelerator, ASUS isn't wasting any time is designing its successor, referred to (for now) as "MARS II". This graphics accelerator uses two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 (GF100) GPUs on one board, that's right, the first dual-GPU accelerator based on GF100, which is dreaded for its thermal and electrical characteristics so much, that NVIDIA is content with having the second-fastest graphics card in the market (GTX 480), with no immediate plans of working on a dual-GPU accelerator.

ASUS' ambitious attempt is in the design stage deep inside its R&D, where the design is in an evaluation state. The R&D gave us some exclusive pictures of the MARS II PCB to treat you with. To begin with, the card's basic design is consistent with almost every other dual-GPU NVIDIA card in recent past. There are two independent GPU systems, each with its own VRM and memory, which are interconnected by an internal SLI, and connected to the system bus by an nForce 200 bridge chip. On this card, two GF100 GPUs with the same configuration as GeForce GTX 480 (GF100-375-A3) are used, each having 480 CUDA cores, and connecting to 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface.

ASUS' innovations kick in right from the PCB, since it takes a lot of effort to keep such a design electrically stable, as well form an overclockers' product. MARS II uses a PCB with 3 oz copper layers to increase electrical stability, and used a strong VRM. Each GPU system is fed by an 8+2 phase VRM of its own, which use a new Super Alloy choke that reduces core energy loss. The card takes its power input from three 8-pin power inputs, which are fused.

The card is quad SLI capable, and can pair with another of its kind (and probably single GTX 480s). To cool this monstrosity, ASUS is coming up with a beefier than ever cooling solution. With the product being still at an evaluation stage, how long it will take to reach production, or whether it will in the first place, remains to be seen.

Meh... few months from now the new generation of GPU will come and this card would be on the same performance level as new mainstream one. Why they build such a monster? There always be enthisiasts for this ... but what is the point?

Now, we can finally roast something for a change in our wonderfully enclosed cases.
Given the ARES I intolerable noise levels at load, expect this to be one noisy piece of hardware.
3 8-pin connectors will be needed to power this monster......

"The new model thermi takes performance up a notch, not only will you now be able to roast whale meat with the grill, but we've ensured that there's enough power to flowing through this baby to roast yourself a whale whole!"

"The new model thermi takes performance up a notch, not only will you now be able to roast whale meat with the grill, but we've ensured that there's enough power to flowing through this baby to roast yourself a whale whole!"

Meh... few months from now the new generation of GPU will come and this card would be on the same performance level as new mainstream one. Why they build such a monster? There always be enthisiasts for this ... but what is the point?

To cool this monstrosity, ASUS is coming up with a beefier than ever cooling solution.

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Uhm, I think water cooling would be the only viable solution, but considering how few manufacturers release cards with an water cooling kit in them, this might be the first 4 slot air cooler we're going to see.
And even with a design like that, ASUS would probably be forced to put the most powerful Delta fans in that cooler.
Guess that thing will be able to get as loud as a Jumbo-jet taking off.

btarunr, didn't I tell you GTX 480x2 would be released, yet you remained skeptical! Ha!

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On Btarunr's behalf, may i quote:
"With the product being still at an evaluation stage, how long it will take to reach production, or whether it will in the first place, remains to be seen. "

Besides, this isn't NV's solution, it is Asus - and they are nutters. I'm sure they can make it but the cooling solution will be a single plane ticket to alaska and a hole in the frozen ground to put it in.

They'll call it 'Mars to Fermi - Baked Alaska done right'

Qudos to Asus for being mental enough to try anything!

To be fair though (or not so fair) most product reviews for the Mars and the Ares aren't very appreciative.

Ya, they're really gonna have to pull something out there ass in terms of cooling it. Don't think they could just do water cooling as of course, it's not the standard like air is. But really, most people who are actually gonna buy this card, will probably be running a water setup anyways.(and a PSU touched by god)

Cause it's gonna take them forever to find a sufficent enough air cooler to keep that card within reasonable temps.